Book Bans Are Really About Fear

And that’s why, when they’ve sought to erase people and cultures, every authoritarian from the beginning of time until now has destroyed their books and burned their libraries.

After the the Romans tore down ancient Carthage, brick by brick, and sold its people into slavery in 146 B.C.E., they gave the Carthaginians’ books to the city’s adversaries, who either destroyed or lost them, silencing them forever.

The Nazis held well-documented book burnings in 1933. And in a modern twist, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is struggling to keep the truth of its savage invasion of Ukraine from its own people.

Last year, students in a Pennsylvania school district about 40 minutes south of Harrisburg made nationwide headlines when they took on — and won a reversal of — a year-long ban on a list of anti-racism books and educational resources by or about people of color, including children’s books that dealt with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.

The school board’s president, Jane Johnson, told the Washington Post at the time that the board was trying to “balance legitimate academic freedom with what could be literature/materials that are too activist in nature, and may lean more toward indoctrination rather than age-appropriate academic content.”

Hear that? Indoctrination? That’s the voice of fear talking. It’s a way to push back, without appearing to push back, against arguments that you’re trying to silence or erase those whose voices badly need to be heard.

When a student — or anyone — picks up a book, it’s a moment of singular liberation. It’s their first step down that hallway of knowledge. It’s the start, rather than the end, of the adventure. And there’s no telling where it might take them — perhaps even to the halls of power themselves.

And if they’re very lucky, they will have their own Mrs. Bullock to help guide them down those twisting and turning corridors, always nudging them along, gently prodding and testing them, but never, ever standing in their way or blocking the path.

Only the fearful do that.

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An award-winning political journalist, John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at jmicek@penncapital-star.com and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek. Copyright 2022 John L. Micek, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.